Kinsler provides the game-winning hit as Tigers do it again in 10

Like if you swing in a 3-0 count, with a pitcher who’s clearly laboring, you’d better do something productive with it.

Or if you walk batters in the ninth inning, as the closer, you better get yourself out of it.

A third could be: Don’t get yourself in a jam in the home half of the final inning, then allow a game-winning hit.

The Tigers won in dramatic fashion for the second straight game, beating the Royals, 2-1, on Ian Kinsler’s two-out single in the 10th inning, after Kansas City tied it an inning earlier.

“It’s always a good feeling to pick the team up like that late in the game. Honestly, all I could think about was the way Max (Scherzer) threw the ball,” said Kinsler, who also picked up closer Joe Nathan after a blown save in the ninth. “Any time you win a game, guys can move on to the next day a lot easier. Joe still did his job, keeping us in the game, giving us an opportunity to win it. He expects more out of himself, we know that.”

According to Elias Sports Bureau research, it was the first time the Tigers had started the season with back-to-back wins in their final at-bat since their first two games in existence, in 1901. It was the first time for any MLB team since the Twins in 2004.

Billy Butler hadn’t failed in that 3-0 count many times in his career in that situation, but his first-inning double play helped Scherzer settle down, and the reigning Cy Young winner used the reprieve to get in a groove.

Scherzer went on to strike out seven in eight shutout innings of work.

He gave up a leadoff double to Salvador Perez in the eighth, but struck out two before Ausmus visited him on the mound. The manager left him in with 107 pitches, and Scherzer responded by getting Alcides Escobar to fly out, heading to the dugout with a double fist-pump.

It wasn’t enough to get him the win, though, as Butler drew a one-out walk in the ninth, contributing to Nathan blowing his first save as a Tigers closer.

Nathan had gone 36-for-36 in save chances against the Tigers in his career, but blew his first chance to save a game for them, loading the bases with a single and a pair of walks, and allowing the tying run on Alex Gordon’s sacrifice fly.

“Room for improvement, for sure,” Nathan said. “Like I said, these are much easier to take when you walk away with a ‘W.’”

The Tigers were 20-26 in one-run games in the 2013 regular season, and won just two 1-0 contests before the start of the playoffs.

The Tigers got on the board in the fourth, when Kinsler led off the inning with a solo home run — his first hit as a Tiger — into the Royals bullpen in left-center field.

Manager Brad Ausmus won his first instant replay challenge in the sixth inning, but the Tigers were unable to convert that into runs. The Tigers benefitted from a second replay overturn in the 10th inning, when Nori Aoki was called out to end the Royals’ threat.